Beverage preparation machines such as coffee or tea brewing machines are well known. It is known to provide beverage preparation machines which dispense individual servings of beverage directly into a receptacle such as a cup. Such machines may derive the beverage from a bulk supply of beverage ingredients or from packages of beverage ingredients such as pods, pads or cartridges. An example of one type of such packages is shown in EP1440903. In the following specification such packages will be referenced by the general term cartridges. However, the invention is not limited to use with one particular type of pod, pad or cartridge. The beverages are formed from brewing, mixing, dissolving or suspending the beverage ingredients in water. For example, for coffee beverages, heated water is passed through the cartridges to form the extracted solution. The use of cartridges in such machines has become increasingly popular due to their convenience and the quality of the beverage produced.
Use of cartridges in such machines requires accurate positioning of the cartridge within a delivery head of the machine, There is also a desire, for convenience, to automate the removal of cartridges from the delivery head of the machine after use. Known positioning and ejection mechanisms can suffer from drawbacks. In particular, the mechanisms can be bulky and may not be easily adaptable to work with a range of sizes of cartridge.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved beverage preparation machine and method which allows for accurate positioning of a cartridge within the machine for dispensation and, optionally, provides an improved ejection mechanism for such cartridges.